Australia’s golden crop of Mad Max Oscar winners: how they got here and where to next

The Hottest Celebs At The 2016 Academy Awards2:07

Every A-list celebrity in the world attended the 88th annual Oscars which began with the red carpet arrivals. Wearing the worlds most exclusive fashion lines, stars made their way through the red carpet for pre-award photos. Among the special guest were Alicia Vikander, Brie Larson, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, David O Russell, Kate Winslet, Kevin Hart, Lady Gaga, Leonardo DiCaprio, Luciana Damon, Matt Damon, Rachel McAdams, Rooney Mara, Saoirse Ronan, Sylvester Stallone and Taylor Kinney. This is raw footage of the stunning arrivals.

March 3rd 2016

9 months ago

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Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller said before the Academy Awards that his wife Margaret Sixel, Editing, was more deserving of an Oscar than he was. Picture: Ross Schultz

Not when you’re four decades deep and already on director George Miller’s speed-dial, says Lesley Vanderwalt, one of the Mad Max: Fury Road team from Australia that snagged six golden statuettes at the Academy Awards on Monday (AEST).

“I have been working at this for fortysomething years. I have got my reputation,” the New Zealand-born, Sydney-based lead make-up artist told News Corp Australia the day after her big win.

“I have been working with George since 1981 — over 30 years. I have worked with Baz Luhrmann since Strictly Ballroom. I have just worked with Alex Proyas on Gods of Egypt.

Lesley Vanderwalt proudly showed off her Oscar on Wednesday morning after landing back in Sydney on a flight that also carried fellow Mad Max winners Margaret Sixel and Damian Martin, plus director George Miller. Picture: Ross SchultzSource:News Corp Australia

“For the last 10 years, I have had the ability to pick my projects. I have been very lucky with the directors I have chosen. And obviously they appreciate me because they ask me back again.”

That’s not to say Vanderwalt isn’t relishing the title of ‘Oscar Winner’.

“This is an amazing accolade,” she said. “The greatest thrill has been spending all this time with your peers from around the world who are all amazing artists. (To be) up there on top, being recognised among the best of them, it’s fantastic.”

“Here is a group of Australians very publicly acknowledged as the best of the best — they have brought home the Olympic gold,” Deaner said.

“An Oscar may help them negotiate a premium for future gigs and little wonder — these are marks of excellence.”

While some of our Mad Max winners remain in LA, others have headed to London and Vanderwalt is already back at work in Sydney, doing pre-production on Ridley Scott’s next sci-fi adventure Alien: Covenant.

Co-winner Damian Martin, a prosthetics expert who has worked alongside Vanderwalt on the likes of Gods of Egypt, The Great Gatsby and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, was also headed straight for Alien: Covenant.

It’s another dream job for a sci-fi and horror geek who started out trying to recreate creatures from his favourite movies. Martin’s Odd Studio has had a hand in many of the international blockbusters filmed in Australia over the past 20 years, from Babe: Pig in the City to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which shot on the Gold Coast last year.

Elka Wardega rounds out the Best Make-Up and Hairstyling winning trio. She, too, is in demand for blockbuster prosthetics, her CV boasting The Hobbit and Chronicles of Narnia trilogies, Moulin Rouge and The Matrix.

Best Sound Mixing winner Ben Osmo is another 40-year industry veteran whose work with Miller’s production company Kennedy Miller Mitchell goes back to 1987: “They’re inspirational,” he said Sunday night, clutching his first-ever Oscar.

The statuette will be kept at his home in Sydney, alongside AFI/AACTA gongs for Dead Calm, Blood Oath, Oscar and Lucinda and The Sapphires.

A performing musician on the side, Osmo runs Osmo Sound with his wife Alana. She said she was proud of her husband, who has “worked hard all his life”.

If shooting Fury Road in Namibia seemed exotic for Best Production Design winner Colin Gibson, more adventure lay ahead on the job that followed: The Great Wall, a Zhang Yimou epic shot entirely in China.

To be released in February 2017, the film was described to News Corp Australia by its star Matt Damon as “the biggest I’ve been on”.

It’s a long way from the Australiana that fills Gibson’s art director/production designer CV: Young Einstein, Babe, Welcome to Woop Woop and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Gibson’s co-winner, set decorator Lisa Thompson, has worked on some of the most successful movies to be shot in Australia in recent years: The Dressmaker, Dwayne Johnson disaster flick San Andreas and Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken.

The joy of winning an Oscar is written all over the faces of experienced Aussie production designer Colin Gibson and set decorator Lisa Thompson. Picture: AFP / Frederic J BrownSource:AFP

She began her career in the gritty backstreets of Melbourne in the early 1990s with the Russell Crowe breakout Romper Stomper and has worked internationally on TV series Lizzie McGuire and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The Englishwoman among all these Aussie winners, costume designer Jenny Beavan, was more au fait with period costume than post-apocalyptic chic before Miller tapped her for Fury Road.

Her previous Academy Award nominations had come for Gosford Park, Sense and Sensibility and The King’s Speech, and she won in 1987 for A Room With a View.

She told Vanity Fair that Fury Road “was an unusual one” — Miller sent 200 boxes over to the UK filled not with bonnets and corsets, but “old car parts, old cutlery ...” Things “you don’t need a lot on Jane Austen,” Beavan quipped.

Her handiwork will next be seen in the supernatural thriller A Cure for Wellness, directed by Gore Verbinski.

The most exuberant of the Aussies to grace the stage on Sunday night was Best Sound Editing recipient David White.

White has been working in movies since the late 1980s on features including Dark City, Idiot Box and The Railway Man. His work on Fury Road stretched to almost two years.

Asked at the Oscars what he thought George Miller should do next, White cheekily suggested: “I would encourage him to do a really boring relationship drama set around a kitchen table ... that he can shoot in three weeks and we can do the sound-post in three days.”

Miller may face a battle keeping his Oscar-winning editor — and wife — Margaret Sixel to himself. Until now, her only feature editing jobs have been on Miller productions: Fury Road, Happy Feet and Babe: Pig in the City.

But as Fury Road star Tom Hardy put it, Miller and Sixel “smashed action movies in the year 2015 and basically handed it back to everybody who’s trying to make one and said, ‘That’s how it’s done’.”

Sixel’s skill at turning long desert stretches into heart-pounding action sequences may be in high demand from here on in.

Leonardo DiCaprio, winner of the award for best actor in a leading role for “The Revenant”, gets his Academy Award engraved at the Governors Ball after the Oscars. Picture: Al Powers/Invision/AP4 of 32

Don’t forget to pick that Oscar up off the floor when you leave, Leo! Picture: Jeff Vespa/VF16/WireImage5 of 32

Brie Larson, winner of the award for best actress in a leading role for “Room”, attends the Governors Ball after the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016. Picture: Al Powers/Invision/AP6 of 32

Best actress winner Brie Larson, winner of Best Actress for ‘Room,’ gets her Oscar engraved at the Governors Ball. Picture: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images7 of 32

Mark Rylance, winner of the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Bridge of Spies”, from left, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw attend the Governors Ball after the Oscars on Sunday, Picture: Al Powers/Invision/AP24 of 32

Mark Rylance, winner of the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Bridge of Spies”, from left, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw attend the Governors Ball after the Oscars on Sunday, Picture: Al Powers/Invision/AP

Model Naomi Campbell attends the 20th Century Fox Academy Awards after party at Hollywood Athletic Club on February 28, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)28 of 65

TV personality Caitlyn Jenner attends the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 28, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)29 of 65

Actress Hailee Steinfeld attends the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 28, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)30 of 65

No change of outfit for Jennifer Garner, seen here arriving at the Vanity Fair afterparty. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)31 of 65

Recordidng artist Sheryl Crow attends the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 28, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)32 of 65

Tennis player Serena Williams attends the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 28, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)33 of 65

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